It Goes On
by rapid-apathy
Summary: Sometimes jobs just go wrong is all.


_A/N: This starts directly after the movie ends._

OOO

i.

Things go wrong on jobs. It happens.

He drives.

ii.

There's blood on you, she says looking at him as he walks in the door.

He blinks and walks to an open booth alongside the large diner window. Headlights flash by in a slow staccato from the road outside.

Hey, the waitress says, placing her hand on Driver's arm. You ok? There's blood on you.

He looks at her hand then back at her. Tripped, he says.

iii.

Driver thinks about her sometimes. He will see a young mother bring in her son to the garage and hear his familiar childish wonderment with the garage lift and tires and his delightful flinches and starts from the shrill pitch of the drills and hopes she is okay and that the boy is doing well and how it would be nice to see them. He doesn't think about her much though. Not that he don't want to. He just never thought about anyone too much is all.

iv.

Warm night with the window half down and the radio on but he hears nothing. Her fingers intertwined in his as he drove nowhere and the boy in the back seat played with the toy truck Driver had bought him and the entirety of all that was the world was right now or it never was. In the cinema print of the scene (canted light, soft white skin) he thought he might actually be able to feel their love for him and the possibility of one day being able to return it kindled a warmth in dim recesses of his mind until the waking world greeted him back to the comfortable embrace of nothingness and he got up and got a glass of water and then went back to bed.

v.

He drives for almost two days non-stop only stopping at a diner or two to eat and gas up until he was in Arizona. He holes up in a Motel 6 for a few weeks and eats Mexican food from the roach coach that parks across the street and eventually finds a less than reputable garage who needs a mechanic. The proprietor is a short guy, maybe in his fifties, with thin strangles of white hair covered by a grease stained blue Miller Lite baseball cap. He looks at Driver through squinted eyes, sighs and rubs his loose neck.

Can you work transmissions?  
>Yeah, I can.<br>What I really need right now is a transmission guy.  
>I can do transmissions.<br>He stares off out in the sun drenched parking lot outside the garage for a moment and thinks about it.  
>Alright, come in tomorrow round eight. He pulls his cap back and scratches his head. Pays seven bucks an hour until you prove to me you ain't a complete cum stain wastin' my time.<br>Eight, then.

Good thing about working in garages is they don't ask a lot of questions or get too pushy on legalities if you're reliable and can speak Spanish and can keep your mouth shut. Everyone there wasn't supposed to be there according to one government agency or the other and everyone knows not fuck with anyone's shit.

After a few months there Driver knows Juan and his cousin George are wanted in Utah for grand larceny and attempted murder, Ray, Carlos and Marcus are from over the border. Proprietor turns his garage into a hot off the lift strip shop after hours.

These are all things he sees and never says.

To plan your strategy, to map your route you need to be detached and observe without sticking out and these are things Driver excels at.

vi.

He'd go see her maybe, he thinks. It'd been a year. Would they even be in LA still? She probably didn't want to see him and he knew that. That was okay. He didn't want nothing from her. Just to see her. See how big the boy had gotten.

Maybe go for a drive.

vii.

A makeshift street race wins him two grand to buy a new ID from a guy Juan and his cousin used. A quick drop on the clutch in a 87 Impala he'd spent weeks working on put some Mexican kid's low rider piece of shit El Camino to shame as they took a rather sharp curve. Impala lost a little tread on its wide tracks. Low rider met a street lamp pole to its side door.

viii.

He tracks her new address to a small apartment in Santa Monica. He watches the building while parked across the street. Observes. He wants to make sure no one is watching and maybe because he don't know what to do or what to say. He just wants to see her.

Hours pass and he starts to wonder if she is really inside or not. Then, the door finally opens and she steps out. Blond to the shoulders milk skin angle.

A man walks out past her as she stands near the doorway and kisses her on the cheek and leaves.

ix.

_I just wanted you to know I wasn't lying when I said you were the best thing that happened to me.  
>I think about you sometimes. Hope you and the kid are doing alright. I just wanted to check on you and give you these. It took awhile, but I got twenty cashier's checks.<br>I'm sorry for everything.  
>Well, I never know what to write in these things, so I guess I'll just say good-bye.<em>

x.

Things go wrong on jobs. It happens.

He drives.


End file.
